Eventually, Albert walked back up the lane without his gun. He came up into the yard and stopped in front of her.
“Sorry, but I had to kill him.”
“I’ll get over it.”
“I didn’t enjoy it, but he’s dead now so …”
“What happened to your gun?”
“I left it with the body.”
She admired her brother, heard the sound of Geraint’s car moving off again, then picked up her bike frame and front wheel, turned, and carried them toward the barn.
“You lied to me,” he said. “You said all your friends were mutants. That one had a face.”
“Did he?”
“He is a proper assho’. Tell him I want my Glock back.”
They heard the phone ringing in the entrance hall. The phone was always ringing. Albert’s mouth twitched. He was the only person in the community who actively wanted to answer. He was much admired for his phone manner. Good afternoon, you are through to Albert Riley, whom can I help you reach? He was always willing to brave wind and rain to track down a volunteer, even if they were waist deep in water trying to clear the filter on the hydroelectric pump.
“It must be someone important,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Only important people call in the mid-afternoon.”
He rubbed the end of his nose with his palm, then said: “Marina says the things you learn in college will be of no use in the next world.”
“It’s for you-hoo,” she said, dropping her bike down in the barn and starting back to the big house.
“Tell me what you learned today,” he said, glancing over toward the front door, the phone now on its eighth ring.
“People with prizes to give away often ring around siesta time.”
“Did you learn about self-defense, survival, or weaponry?”
“Actually, there was a little on bombs.”
“Tell me.”
Albert was hopping from foot to foot now. The phone was his domain, his contact with the outside, and he defended it fiercely. He could often be seen sprinting across the yard in his socks, skidding into the hallway, grabbing the newel post to alter his trajectory—skating the tiles—then plucking the handset from its cradle, hardly out of breath as he delivered one of his lines: Good morning, Blaen-y-Llyn, if you speak to one of us, you speak to us all. Or sometimes just breathing heavily down the line.
“It could be an international call,” she said. “It’s morning in Montreal.”
He swallowed.
“Oh well, looks like nobody’s in,” Kate said, holding her phone-shaped hand to her ear. “Guess I’ll give this free helicopter to somebody else.”
He started to jog backward. “This is not over.”
Albert turned to run, kicking up gravel. He disappeared inside and grabbed the receiver halfway through its sixteenth ring.
“Hello please!”
Kate came in and sat halfway up the stairs to watch him at work. He trapped the handset between his ear and shoulder.
“I’m afraid he’s busy. Maybe I can help. I’m his eleven-year-old son.”
He was known for taking word-perfect phone messages and his intimate knowledge of guests past and present. He knew who was back living with Granny, who had fallen in love and gone to Suriname, who was studying pediatrics. It was his responsibility.
“There’re around twenty of us usually: seven big, three small, and ten wwoofers—which stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms—and they sleep in the attic dorm.”
He was very adept at deflecting TV researchers and journalists. Part of the reason they received so many calls was that Blaen-y-Llyn was first, alphabetically, on a website listing communities of Wales. Pinned to the corkboard above the phone was a printout of answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Albert had learned that most people could be discouraged with a few uninspiring details. He listened, then leaned forward to read off the sheet, speaking with the singsong voice that people get when they have said something many times.
“Blaen-y-Llyn is a community and farm where we grow our own food and run a small-scale veg-box scheme for North Gower. The money from the boxes helps pay for luxury items like”— he looked at his sister —“body armor. We keep hens, goats, and did have plow-horses until they were replaced by machines. We sometimes kill animals and eat them. My mother is a one-woman abattoir.”
Albert looked at his sister and licked his lips. Their mother, Freya, a self-taught but industrious butcher, was in charge of all slaughter on the farm. She could wring a chicken’s neck with the coolness of someone opening a jam jar. She kept up to date on the latest fashions in humane abattage. When Kate became a vegetarian, her mother, perhaps out of guilt, confided in her that she had never chosen her role as executioner in chief. Don had pushed her into it, she said. He had invented the phrase: “one-woman abattoir.”
“Fifty acres in total, divided among fruit, vegetables, crops, livestock, pasture, and our famous orchard.”
The orchard was one apple tree, planted on the day of their parents’ marriage. Kate looked behind her and saw Patrick coming slowly downstairs, looking unsteady. She smiled at him.
“The community was formed during the early nineties recession. More details on our website.”
Patrick went to the bathroom under the stairs. She smelt smoke on him as he passed. She saw, beneath her, in the cracks between boards, the light click on. This toilet had a low ceiling, so boys had to sit down to wee.
“Yes, we have broadband Internet, advert-free television, and some really bad DVDs that my dad likes. The TV is small and in a corner and all the furniture is arranged so that it does not dominate the room.”
Patrick came back out. There was no roar. The community only flushed for solids.
“My favorite film?” Albert said, looking worried.
Patrick took the notepad next to the phone, wrote something down, and held it up.
“Eat Drink Man Woman. Anything else you’d like to ask?”
Kate noticed there were little damp spots down Patrick’s inside trouser leg. Part of her relationship with Patrick involved him telling her about the terrible ways in which his body was changing, and that it was coming for her, and soon.
“You alright, Pat?” Kate said.
“There is a membership application form, available to download. The final decision is made by the entire community based on”—again Albert squinted at the FAQ—“entirely subjective criteria.”
Pat nodded, then grabbed the communal Volvo’s car keys that hung above the phone.
“My tutors graduated from high-ranking universities.”
As the one-man switchboard, Albert was given special allowances, like being allowed to get up from dinner without excusing himself.
“My favorite subject is home economics.”
One of Janet’s old boyfriends, an allergist, once told Albert that in the modern world it was important to have an elegant phone manner, and he clung to this belief and sometimes could be heard repeating it back to the people who phoned: “It’s important to have an elegant phone manner in the modern world.”
“Our policy is no access for video cameras. Photos are not well liked either.”
Albert twirled the cord round his finger in the manner of a girlfriend talking to another girlfriend. Patrick nodded to Kate and slipped out through the front door.
“It sounds like a very interesting project, but my father says your industry is inherently evil.”
There was a long wait.
“Really? He is one of my favorite presenters. In that case, you can have Dad’s mobile telephone number.”
It was useful for Albert, when fending off aggressive producers, to be able to give out one of the two community pay-as-you-go numbers. These mobile phones were for emergency-only use and, as such, were almost never switched on.
“Awesome!” he said. Then he read out the community’s address.
Over the years, he had received a number of autographed photo portraits
.
Patrick drove the communal Volvo through light rain. He had the heater on full; a biscuity smell came from the vents. He put on his favorite swing jazz mix tape, 90 percent Benny Goodman, but even that seemed shallow and toneless. He had not been stoned for five and a half days.
In Parkmill, he stopped in the bus bay outside Shepherd’s Ice Cream. It was late afternoon. He looked up and down the road but couldn’t see anyone. His skin tightened as the air recycled. Ejecting the tape, he flicked between radio stations. Classic rock, popular, classical, choral, local unsigned. All music is bullshit, he thought, though he didn’t mean it. Patrick knew only one person who did not like music: Don, who said he found it manipulative. Among the sorts of people who frequented the community, not liking music was up there with not liking foreigners or homosexuals. It had always pleased Patrick to know Don’s secret shame.
As it started to get dark, he saw them riding their BMXs through the parking lot. He flashed his headlights twice and wound down his window.
“Boys!” he shouted, with his famous lungs. “Boys!”
They skidded to a halt, then cycled over to the window. All three of them had their hoods up and scarves over their mouths and noses, Zapatista-style.
“Alright, Gramps,” one of them said.
“Alright, lads. You want to run your old man an errand?”
“I ain’t giving you a blowie.”
With their scarves, Patrick couldn’t see their mouths move. Their eyes glistened in the cold. He handed over a twenty and watched as they cycled off, bums raised in the air, bike seats ticking back and forth like metronomes.
In the schoolroom, Isaac plucked at the exposed strings through the open base of the stand-up piano. He was half-listening as Kate explained to her brother what she’d learned at college that day. She and Albert sat opposite each other, cross-legged on the rug, and Kate had some of her primary sources out: reproduction pamphlets of the White Rose movement, photos of key members, one who looked like a Morrissey fan.
“The first thing to know is that not everyone in Germany during the war was on the Nazis’ side,” Kate said.
“That’s bullsheeet,” Albert said.
“Bullsheeet,” Isaac said. He had a SuperBall that, when dragged down the piano’s bass strings, created a noise like whale song.
“The White Rose movement were a group who stood up against the established views in German society, even at the risk to their own well-being.”
“They sound like Mum and Dad,” Albert said.
“They’re nothing like that.”
“Mum and Dad reject the norms and values of our society,” Albert said.
“Norms and values?” Kate said.
“Ask Marina,” Albert said.
Isaac climbed through the wooden loom that was standing in the opposite corner to the piano. He liked to get himself tangled in the threads and then, imagining it was a combine harvester about to be switched on, challenge himself to escape.
“Our community changes people all the time,” Albert said. “We have that power, though our time is running out.”
“Shut up, moron. Who told you that?”
“When people come here they realize that it is possible,” Albert said, sounding like he was quoting someone, “that they too can change the way they live.”
“Seriously. You shouldn’t listen to everything people tell you.” She hadn’t noticed that Isaac had escaped the loom and was standing behind her, listening.
“Real education doesn’t happen in classrooms.”
“Listen, Albert, before you switch off all independent thought”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“you should realize that communities like ours maintain the status quo. Ever wonder why Patrick lives on his own in the dome? He’s depressed; they put him in there as quarantine.” She was discovering how she felt by speaking. “And all the volunteers, they’re just tourists. And Marina, my God, do you remember why they let her join?” She started to point and chop for emphasis, unaware that these were her father’s rhetorical tics. It felt good to say all this stuff. “She was touring communities—a perpetual tour—never working or paying rent. Mum and Dad don’t even like her! That’s why they put her in the workshop! It might as well be a council house …”
Kate trailed off. Albert was staring. There was something behind her. Turning, she saw Isaac standing on the piano stool with a look of vertigo on his face. She got up and stood in front of him.
“Hey, little dude,” she said.
Isaac waved at her even though they were only an arm’s length apart.
“We are like the White Rose movement, aren’t we?” Albert said.
Kate kept looking at Isaac: “Yes, brother and sister, rising up against society, and Isaac is the professor, aren’t you, Isaac?”
Isaac looked like he was thinking of something. He peered down at the floor.
“What do you mean about my mum?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything about your mum.”
“You said no one likes her.”
“I didn’t say that. Isaac, I think we should play a game, don’t you?”
“Why don’t you like her?” Albert said. “She’s the best.”
“I like your parents,” Isaac said.
Kate took hold of Isaac’s hands and tried to think of a cliché. “Everybody here is your parents.”
“Are you?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, let me try,” Albert said. “Go to your room, Isaac.”
“Ha ha!” Isaac laughed, holding his ribs.
“I’ve had just about enough of you, young man,” Albert said to Isaac, wagging his finger.
“Ha ha!” He creased up at the waist.
“Albert,” Kate said.
He started shaking his fist at Isaac. “I don’t want to hear another peep out of you. I ought to fetch my slipper.”
“Albert, where do you get this?”
“The Beano Annual,” he said, standing up. He pointed at Isaac. “You ungrateful little shit. I wish you’d never been born.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Kate said.
Isaac rubbed the top of his head with his hand.
She turned her back to him and offered him a piggyback. He jumped on.
She said: “Where would you like to go?”
It was half a year ago that Isaac and Marina had been interviewed for full-time membership. They had been staying with the community on a trial basis for the previous six weeks and normally, at that point, there’d be a monthlong cooling-off break before a final evaluation. But just before they were due to leave, Marina started making loud inquiries on the house phone into whether the nearby campsite did a discount for a four-week stay, which rather suggested they had nowhere to go to cool off. Typically, if an applicant admitted they didn’t have anyone who was willing to take them in, then that was its own kind of bad signal. But on this occasion the community agreed to forgo procedure, largely because of Isaac, who, with his youth, and his kinship with Albert, seemed to represent the beginning of a new generation of young people at the community.
Seated at one side of the round dining table in the center of the kitchen was the core team who led the interview: Freya, Arlo, and Don, in that order. Marina was opposite them. The table had been known to seat twenty, so it looked bare. The other vote-casting members, she and Patrick, watching but not contributing, sat on the blue sofa against the back wall. Janet was away in Bristol, working on a new collection. From where Kate was sitting, she could also see Isaac and Albert underneath the table, crawling in circles, counting everyone’s toes.
“So, I’d be interested to know what your plans are for the future,” Freya had said. “What your aims are, in the long term.”
“Well, I’m really most focused on what’s best for Isaac,” Marina had said, and her son made a woof-woof noise on hearing his name. “The great thing about Blaen-y-Llyn”—Don’s eyes tightened as he assessed her pronunciation—“is that it’s a fantastic, o
pen place where he can learn and make friends.”
Marina had a round face, with gray wavy curtains, her cheeks like apples that, to those who fantasized about such things, would have been the best bits, if she were to be cooked. She was big but robust—the term is jolly—and was wearing a body warmer.
“And how long would you like to stay with us?” Freya said.
“Well, as long as I can. I mean, I think we’ll all be reassessing things by the end of the year, so it’s probably not good to have anything set in stone …” She smiled and laughed in a way that indicated she hoped her interviewers were on the same astrological page, but found two hard expressions and Arlo, distracted by his nails.
“Why so?” Don said.
“I just think we’ll see some big changes by the end of 2012,” Marina said, changing position in her seat, “in both the physical and spiritual spheres. Around that time.”
Don was nodding now and steepling his fingers.
“Is this about the Mayan calendar?” Freya said.
“I know it can sound loopy. I completely understand. But it’s not really about the Mayans, though people find it fun to think so. There’s a strong scientific backing.”
“I’m interested,” Don said, leaning forward.
Kate was highly attuned to sarcasm in her father’s voice.
“Well, basically, if you imagine this table is the Milky Way, our galaxy,” Marina said, putting her hands out on the wood, “then it’s fairly standard stuff to say that at the center is what they call a supermassive black hole. Ours is known as Sagittarius A. It’s incredibly dense”—Kate noticed her father smile at this—“it’s three million times as heavy as the sun, but invisible to us—its gravitational pull is so powerful that even light can’t escape. Scientists know it’s there because of the way everything around it is drawn in.” There was a hole in the middle of the table from when it had accommodated a sun umbrella, and Marina made a show of peering down into it. “Because this black hole is, as they say, starving. It has a hungry gravitational pull—sucking things in and swallowing them …”